W.F. Frame Tells His Own Story

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

111–112

text excerpt

We next travelled to Tilsonburgh [sic]―an all-night journey, and performed in the theatre for the fire brigade.  [Frame was met at the station by the Rev. Mr. M‘Laughlan, who asked him to visit an old friend from the Vale of Leven, the chemist Mr. Thomson, who was seriously ill]

I went right away, and his goodwife received us.  We entered his room on tiptoe, and it was a glad and a very sad meeting.  Extending his frail hand to me, Mr. Thomson said, “Man, Frame, I thought I would never see you; it’s so long since you promised to come here.”  “My old friend Thomson,” I said, “it’s a long way frae the auld countrie to Tilsonburgh.”  He told me he had heard David Kennedy and Hamilton Corbett, the Scotch singers, who had both visited him.

It was some thirty years since he had left Alexandria.  He asked me to sing him the “Land o’ the Leal,” which I did.  It seemed to touch him, and I can tell you it touched me.  In my own way, I told him of the “Golden City” where there was neither sorrow nor suffering.

He requested me to sing the “Land o’ the Leal” that night at nine o’clock.  I promised that the song would be sung, and it was by one of my party.  We resumed our journey next morning, but before leaving the city the minister came to see us, and informed me that my friend Thomson had passed away last night at nine o’clock, just at the hour the song was being sung.

excerpt from 'W.F. Frame Tells His Own Story' pp. 111–112 (269 words)

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